


Freezing Rain

by sarken



Category: Third Watch
Genre: F/M, Juvenilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-02-23
Updated: 2003-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarken/pseuds/sarken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the rain, Faith walks to Bosco's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freezing Rain

It's cold, almost too cold for it to be raining. But it is raining as she walks away from her apartment, away from the life she knows, to somewhere she doesn't go often enough. It's raining as she walks through the dark city at an hour when he tries to protect her, at an hour when he doesn't want her to be out walking alone.

She's walking, though, and she's not afraid. Not afraid of the things that may be lurking in the shadows, at least, but she is afraid of what she left in her warm and well-lit and dry apartment. That's why she is out walking in the rain in the dark. She knows how to defend herself out here; she's a New York City cop, this is what she was trained for. Her training has somehow become instinct, but she has no instinct for how to deal with her home life. She was never trained to prepare her for a nightmarish home life, and she wishes she was.

Maybe she should consider the house she grew up in and that could be her training. But that would be improper training because it was handled so poorly by all who were involved. Which is better, she wonders as she walks, to be untrained or to be trained incorrectly? It must be to be untrained, she decides as she crosses against the light, because then you don't have to unlearn; you just learn as you go. But then, which am I: untrained or improperly trained? Am I making this up as I go and doing what feels right, or am I following a bad example that has been burned into my mind?

She decides she is undecided and continues walking forward because his apartment is closer, not because she knows going home would be a mistake. At this point, she doesn't know anything except that his place is warmer and drier and safer than the streets and his embrace is warmer than that of the darkness. So she walks a few more blocks until she's there.

At the unholy hour of two o'clock, she pounds on his door, knowing he isn't asleep yet because he stays up to watch Chicago Hope reruns on Lifetime, even though he would never admit to it. She's dripping and shivering, a trail of wet footprints down the hall, ending where she stands waiting for him to open the door.

Moments later, he does and he stares at her, her bluish lips and her wet hair that clings to her face. He blinks one, two, three times before dragging her inside, never saying a word. In the middle of his living room, he takes off his T-shirt and she strips off her soaked clothing and pulls the too-large shirt over her head.

Her shoes and her clothes remain in the middle of the floor as she follows him into the bedroom. She climbs into his comfortable bed and he pulls the blankets over her before climbing in as well. It's when he envelopes her in his arms that she decides she isn't going home tomorrow because home stopped being that place she knows and now it's this apartment that she doesn't come to often enough.

The cold and the effort of making that decision have drained the life from her body, and soon she is asleep. He listens to her breathe, traces all her curves, curls protectively around her, and eventually falls asleep, lulled by the sound of the rain hitting his window.


End file.
